Wednesday, September 28, 2011

I have blogged extensively about the violence in Honduras and two days ago the unthinkable happened in my family. My son's cousin*he isn't actually my cousin, but he is the cousin of my stbx husband and son* Two days ago he was in his home with his kids that he is raising with his wife*not their mother*. He has eight children total and is taking care of all of them on his own. He had a spot in the market that he ran with his father and mother and his father has been working for the government lately since the win of Pepe Lobo as president.

As to what happened, we know very little except that men dressed as DNIC officers broke into the home and took him from his house two days ago, since that time we have heard nothing. We have received no ransom demands, no clue as to where he is and we have been to morgues, police stations to see if he was in jail, hospitals and everywhere else we could think of. He seemingly disappeared without a trace.

I am asking everyone to keep his mother Amparo and father Marino in their prayers. He has a brother, Leonard and a sister Diana and his name is Noe. Of course he has eight children that are hoping for his safe return though with each passing hour that looks less hopeful. This has indeed been a very difficult week for our family and neighborhood, 2 burials in the past 8 days and now another missing.

If you have have seen or know of the whereabouts of Esteban Noe Moreno Cañada please call 2566-1238, 9673-2527 or for English 8883-4766 any information that you have is appreciated.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

On Sunday one of our neighbors and my son's soccer coach was killed in a motorcycle accident on Avenida Junior in front of Taco Pollo here in San Pedro Sula. His oldest daughter Melissa was with him. They had just returned from a trip to Tela and Santa Barbara. A drunk man hit them and he was thrown off his motorcycle with the daughter. He hit the telephone pole so hard that it knocked his helmet off and he hit his head on the pavement. At first he was unconcious and then he woke up. At some point his daughter was transported to the IHSS hospital.where she is in grave condition. Somehow though no one, not even the police transported him to the hospital. It seems the reason was he had a tattoo, not a gang tattoo mind you, just a tattoo. The ignorance of some folks here astounds me when it comes to tattoos you are automatically assumed to be associated with a gang or to be a criminal. This somehow makes you subhuman and not worthy of your life being saved. It even can earn some folks making comments that you should be dead. He was left in agony begging for help for almost 1 hour and not even the police would rescue him and he finally expired from his injuries then they sent for forensics to recover his body.

This above scene would never occur in the US because the police would be in serious trouble and any people around would have long before called an ambulance and rescue services regardless of what the man looked like. In Honduras, we need to establish samaritan laws that not only protect people if they rescue someone and take them to the hospital and at the same time requires people to act and not just stand there and allow someone to die on the side of the road without rendering aid, especially the police should be held criminally responsible for someone dying like this. How outrageous that now we are burying a man who was a wonderful neighbor, father and coach. He had three children, two daughters and a son. His 12 year old son had been stricken with polio as a small child and it caused serious damage to his spinal column and organs. This young man was doted on by his father and he never needed for anything. They spent countless time and hours trying to find medical assistance for his son. His daughters Melissa 19 and Pamela 14 are wondeful brite young ladies. This man is a loss to our neighborhood and we are all saddened by the situation. Had he been taken to the hospital he may have been saved, but no one, not even the police tried to save him.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Next Wednesday, President Porfirio Lobo Sosa will be announcing a new insurance program for ex patriot Hondurans that live in the exterior such as the US. This will cover general medicine and other medical needs that are provided by Social Security Hospital in Honduras. It is being called ' Catracho Seguro' . Right now I do not have a huge amount of information n this other than more information is available at the Consulate in Miami, Florida. I give a thumbs up to Pepe on this initiative as it wil help insure many uninsured Hondurans in the US.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

I loaned my living room area the other day for a wake the other day for one of my neighbor's sons who was murdered. Their home was too small to accomdate a large amount of people. I got first hand experience with some of Honduran beliefs and traditions when it comes to funerals.

First, Hondurans are extremely superstitious. These superstitions and beliefs are even more engrained in the areas of life and death.

Most wakes in Honduras are held in private homes and not in funeral homes. I am not sure for the reason for this other than the fact that the family stays with the body for the entire time until burial and the fact that a wake is a huge social event involving not just family but friends and neighbors as well.

One thing I noticed is the way they enter the casket into the home and exit the casket from the home. The casket is always exited from the home feet first. Hondurans believe that if you remove a casket head first that the deceased will then come back and take all of the people at the wake with them to the other side. During the wake the casket is also placed so that the sun will cross the face of the deceased to provide them with light and make the deceased happy. The feet should always face the door so that the spirit is not bound inside the home.

The wake is held all night long and is a huge event. There is no such thing as a small wake. Everyone is invited to the wake..there is no formal invitation it is without saying that everyone can come in the neighborhood and family as well. Food and drinks are served, even alcoholic drinks. It is custom that family stay the entire night with the casket to keep their loved one company so that they are happy in the process of moving into the spirit world. Many people think it is dangerous that you will make the spirit unhappy if you sleep during the hours of 3 and 5 am instead of keeping the dead company. The casket also should have 4 lit candles the entire night without allowing them to burn out. This will light the way for the spirit into the spirit world and make the spirit happy without upsetting them by the darkness. They also believe all caskets should have flowers of some sort even if it is wildflowers.

Once the casket is removed feet first from the home to be taken to the cemetary for burial Hondurans believe that the doors should be left wide open so that the spirit of the deceased then follows the casket to the cemetary for the proper burial instead of remaining bound in the home.

When people return from the burial they are then able to sleep and take baths to get rid of hijillo. People in Honduras are often told not to visit wakes if they have cuts or are ill because of hijillo. Pregnant women can assist as long as they tape camphor tablets to their belly button thus preventing the hijillo from affecting them and the unborn child.

What is hijillo? It is the process of decomposition of the body and the gas that the body produces.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

In Honduras like in most Latin American countries the icecream man pushes a cart around selling his ice cream to the neighborhoods. Here they have a different version than I have ever seen. It is something that I enjoy though. They scoop shaved ice into a cup and put the snow cone flavoring in the ice usually a red color and slap 'miel' honey on it and canned condensed milk on top with a straw and spoon for your enjoyment. I never get tired of this treat and I usually ask them to leave the ' miel' off because it makes it too sweet I love the condensed milk being added to the topping...I wish I had my camera with me this afternoon but perhaps I can find a picture of it on the net somewhere and add it here for everyone...the cost of these little treats is 10 lempiras which is about 50 cents or less in US dollars.

Honduras I believe is the only place in the world where it rains fish once a year. It happens in the department of Yoro sometime between May and July. There is no specific day, but if you want to have a truly unusual experience in a trip this would be it, but you would need to plan an extended vacation since there is not a set day.

There is no credible explination for this phenomenon through science, but it really does happen. Tradition here says that Father Jose Manuel Subarina came to Honduras and upon finding so many desperately poor people he prayed for 3 days and 3 nights and upon that it rained fish providing a blessing for the people that has continued on every year.

What is interesting is the phenomenon includes fish that are not from that area and are fresh water fish. It does occur only during a very strong thunderstorm that lasts at least 3 hours so it needs to be a torrential rain storm before you will get the raining of fish. It also usually occurs around 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Something even more interesting is that none of the fish that have fallen from the sky have been able to be kept alive, they all die within a few hours regardless of what is done, so it seems they are sent to be eaten and not grown. The fish rain starts from a very black rain cloud that rises up over the mountaintop and always originates from the same direction, it is most likely that it will occur sometime between June and July but evidently has occurred in May as well. What is interesting is how this always occurs year after year one time a year.

So grab your basket and come to Yoro during this season if you want to experience what it is like to have it rain fish.

When I first started my adventure with Honduran cuisine the two things that were a bit strange to me where Honduran spaghetti and fried green bananas known as ´tajadas´. I first came to Honduras to visit when my 15 year old son was not yet 1 year old. He celebrated his 1st birthday in Honduras.

Honduran spaghetti is interesting, it took me some time to get used to, but now that I have gotten used to it sometimes I like to add it instead of rice. I never could understand how in the world it is that Hondurans like to eat both rice and spaghetti in the same plate, wow all the carbohydrates at work there....we walk a lot here, but not enough to work off that type of diet.

You might wander what is so interesting about it, in reality Honduran spaghetti is quite simple to make. Take 1 pound of spaghetti noodles and put them to boil in water and a pinch of salt, gather the rest of your ingredients, 1 package of tomato sauce, 1 pack of 4 ounces of Honduran crema..like Sula or fresh if you can get it, half a stick of margerine, hard Honduran cheese that is grated like parmesan, and 2 chicken buillon(I use the Issima brand that is a package instead of a cube). Once your spaghetti is cooked tender take a collander and flip spaghetti into it to drain, then immediately put back in pot while hot, add margerine, buillon, half pack of tomato sauce, crema and mix till you get a light orange color, you don´t want to add too much tomato sauce so you may want to add 1/4 of package first and then add more as you go. Once this is done you can serve with a meat accompaniment, salad and beans...and of course if you want to be fully Honduran, add white rice to it and top the spaghetti with the crumbled cheese.

Monday, September 19, 2011

I really don't want to write about the violence going on in Honduras, but I find the need to continue on with this because if someone doesn't it is easy to forget about what is going on around us. What is occurring here is a true tragedy and it seems like there is little that can be done to stop it.

Pepe said that his ex minister of Security made a proposal to cure the violence outbreaks but that they violated human rights and he wanted no part of it. My question is what was the proposal and how did it violate human rights? I was really interested in the idea to clean up the police and no one has a 'right' to a job, they should be able to be fired for any act of corruption no matter how small or large. In fact, it should be an automatic jail sentence. Things just don't work that way in Honduras though as I am finding out. I guess it is the Catracho way of doing things...pig headed as it is.

In the past week 3 police officers have been murdered in the line of duty and one soldier. Two of the police officers were in Bajo Aguan along with a Honduran soldier when the patrol car they were in was attacked by 'guerrilleros' a true loss, I hope these officers and soldier are given full honors at their funeral. The other police officer was an official, the Chief of DNIC in La Paz was murdered when he had stopped to check out a fake bomb package in Ocotillo. Assasins opened fire on him and an ex police officer leaving both dead. No one has been captured as of yet in either of these crimes, but it is a clear signal of the deterioration of law and order in Honduras, what little there was before anyway.

In my neighborhood we have had the pleasure of having no 'maras' so far, but the violence still breaks out here as well because there are maras in surrounding areas. The neighborhood launched a small vigilante group but sometimes it takes quite a bit of effort to control even this small neighborhood. It is impossible to keep all criminal elements out. I live in a 40 year old neighborhood of Las Brisas close to Expocentro in San Pedro Sula one of the most violent cities in the Americas. It seems a shame that to protect ourselves that as citizens we have to violate the law ourselves by arming ourselves to the teeth and shooting at anything strange that moves in the night, but that is exactly what we have done. Anyone strange is checked out, churches have been advised to change their hours to earlier in the evening so that services end by 8 and no one should be in the park after 9 pm. Where before we were in the street up till 2 am many nights the watch group has asked everyone to be in their home no later than 10. This in general has been for the safety of the neighborhood.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

I haven't spoke about this in awhile because it is a sore point with me. I disagree vehemently with the president Pepe Lobo on this issue. I would not have even considered giving the land to these criminals in the first place. He has proposed however, to pay for it with tax payer money. The thing is they have already proven they are not going to be happy with this and that they are determined to carry out a war and take the entire area regardless of what agreements are made.

Yesterday, a police truck was attacked with grenades and high powered weapons. As a result a police officer and a soldier are dead and others are injured. The police truck was doing patrols so there had been no confrontation this was an out and out planned attack. It is time to go in there and clear out the entire area of people and do a shake down. I would retire any proposals from Congress that have to do with giving land to anyone.

What needs to be passed is a law that if you didn't buy the land you can't have it period. I do not understand the attitude of some of the poor folks that think that because a person is wealthy it is ok to steal from them. I have seen this attitude from several people in Honduras and I fail to see how stealing from the rich is any different from stealing from anyone else.

What I see is a small scale guerilla war that needs to be quashed in its early stages and some of this guerilla war is being fueled by Mel Zelaya, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega. Any foreigner in that area needs to be told that they need to leave Bajo Aguan and to stay out if they don't want to be presumed as making war against the state of Honduras. There are plenty of areas they can find safe haven in Honduras outside of the Bajo Aguan if they are not here for malicious reasons. Anyone else caught with high powered weapons or grenades in that area need to be charged under military codes for making war against Honduras and treated accordingly. Treason in the US gets you put in front of a firing squad...I wonder how long it would take for them to stop making their little guerilla war if the state of Honduras started putting traitors in front of a firing squad?

Thursday, September 15, 2011

According to the plans of the now Ex Minister of Security Ricardo Alvarez he wanted to get rid of corrupt police. To be able to fire them on the spot for corruption starting with the highest up of officials all the way down to the lowest entry level police officers. I salute that idea, but is it possible to really cure the police of Honduras or even Honduran society of corruption in our government officials?

It is almost custom when the police stop you to offer them a 'mordida' of say 100 or 200 lempiras to just forget the whole situation. Usually these are harmless situations of using your cell phone while driving or not wearing your seatbelt or running a red light. However, this corruption adds up to bigger corruption of paying to ignore drug shipments, to forget about ballistic evidence, etc. It is not uncommon to see police going into neighborhoods to collect 'rent' from drug dealers and common theives to let them continue with their guns in hand and to continue dealing drugs while police look the other way.

The way to cure this of course is perhaps a few things, the ability to fire...an independent police investigation unit to investigate police corruption and to take complaints against officials and police officers from the general public and let those people remain anonymous. To offer a reward for reporting corruption. Also, I like the idea of undercover police officers, but that is not going to help without the combination of other things as well as adding a prison sentence to anyone offering a bribe to police officers in the first place.

Can the police and Honduran people be cured of corruption? Perhaps, but we have a long row to hoe before we get to cure the ailment of corruption in Honduras.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

I read an article in latribuna.hn a few days ago about Ramon Matta Ballesteros. I have read about him over time and know that he is in the US in a prison for life for the murder of a DEA agent in Mexico.

Hondurans complain that he was extradited in violation of the Honduran constitution and that he was going to pay the entire external debt that Honduras owed. It is true that he offered to pay our external debt in Honduras, but it is also true that he murdered a DEA agent and a Federal police officer of Mexico. He had to pay the price for that crime and he is in jail for that crime. what is also clear is he should not have been in Honduras in the first place. He had been detained in Colombia and bought his way out of prison with $2 million and returned to Honduras where he should have been immediately arrested. There are also extradition agreements with the US and Honduras whereas the US extradites people wanted for murder in Honduras and Hondurans have the obligation to extradite people wanted for murder in the US.

I don't want to spend my time on him, because I have heard way too many Hondurans boo hoo about the son he left behind for 23 years and that the son lost out on his father. My concern is for the agent he killed and his family. You might wander who is the DEA agent that he murdered? Well let's talk about him

His name was Enrique Camarena, he was 38 years old when he was murdered by Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros.

Enrique Camarena was a decorated DEA agent and a marine. He had a wife by the name of Mika and three sons. This is who Kiki Camarena was http://www.camarenafoundation.org/news.htm and this is the legacy he left. His wife and children were without a husband and a father, but not one word from Matta's son about the family of the man his father tortured and killed.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Ex president Zelaya said that he considers the murder of one of his FNRP members as an act of war. The person he is referring to is Mahadeo Roopchands Sadloo, a person of Indian origin.

I am all for freedom of speech, but this guy was a rebel rouser and we do not know that this was any political issue at all. With all the violence going on for all we know he had narcotics connections and was 'dealt with' accordingly. He was a naturalized citizen promoting the overthrow of the constitution and government, he should have been deported.

Zelaya said, this is a declaratio of war against us.

Really? According to police the guy they called' Emmo' got into an argument with a client over some rims and the situation ended in tragedy that the client shot him five times. That hardly is a declaration of war or even a political act.

Unknown individuals shot ' Emmo' five times according to the hospital authorities.

Zelaya said that the justice system is a failure in Honduras and accused it of taking the country into chaos and accused them of promoting a war against resistence groups.

I agree that the justice system is a failure in Honduras, but it isn't because of any promotion of war against any groups in Honduras. The justice system was just as big a tragedy under Zelaya as it is today..

Zelaya called it a political crime, though no determination has been made as to why he was killed yet or who killed him.

We are peaceful, but also the patience of people has come to an end, said Zelaya

Oh really you are a peaceful people? Shall we take a walk down memory lane as to how peaceful you are? Let's look at some pictures shall we?

Yep really peaceful looking folks there....

The ex president said that his political commission is going to make a decision as soon as possible to plan the actions that they are going to take because of this crime.

Your political commission is going to make a decision about what you are going to do? HAHA! How about sitting down, shutting up, and waiting for the investigation to determine whether this was a business deal that went bad or whether it was political and then discuss it...but who is your commission Zelaya? You and yourself? I certainly don't see too much resistence activity these days.

He said this cannot be left this way and we cannot stay silent

Why isn't he so vocal about the deaths of all the women in Honduras? No outrage there huh?

Friday, September 02, 2011

Whether this actually happens or not will depend on a series of events over the next few weeks. However, I need a change the violence is really getting to me lately and some of the people close to me know I am going through a very painful divorce so I need to be close to friends and my own family which means returning to the US for awhile anyway.

This will be a very difficult move for me and of course I will still keep my blog here on Honduras. Honduras is as much a part of me as I am a part of Honduras. I don't really know how I am going to deal with the culture shock of returning to the US after having been here in a 'banana republic' so long...lol. I laugh because they call us a banana republic but I really have a hard time picturing it that way. The divorce though needs to come to a finish in the US I suppose and I need an attorney and to be there to complete that and then do the rest here. I am really sad that the violence here in San Pedro Sula and no future outlook of it calming down has made me decide I may need a break in the US. The economy is really rough here lately and it can be felt by everyone which has not helped me in the least.

My only positive outlook is my home is here and the property is in Olancho and I still have those things and my son who is Honduran will return with me to the states but we will be back here and as strong as ever in the near future..if I can avoid it though I will stay in Honduras and maybe just move to a calmer part of Honduras if that actually exists.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

I have watched in absolute horror as the drug war has developed over the past year here in Honduras. It seems as if the violence in Mexico has spilled across Central America with wreckless abandon. Honduras has always had problems with vigilante style justice and high crime rates, but it seems worse than it has been in recent past.

There have been 3,606 homocides this year up to the date of June, of course that number has likely doubled by now. The drug war has rewarded us with 86 deaths per 100,000 of population folks..how sad can that be? I am in shock and don't know whether I want to cry or just sit here dumbfounded at the absolute helpless situation we are finding ourselves in..and Honduras only has received a few million bucks to fight this damn drug war...I think we should tell the ATF that let the arms come across freely to come fight it themselves and leave us out of it.